 YouTube does not want to show you great photography content. And I'm here today to tell you why and what you can do about it. How's it? How's it? There are a lot of channels out there on YouTube that have really great content about photography, about the why of photography. And they go deeper into this art form that we all love. So why does YouTube insist on filling our home screens with channels about lenses, about gear, about processing, about funny cats, about all sorts of weird things? Do you sort of sit there and scratch your head and go, why? Why are you showing me this stuff? It sounds a little bit full on, but at the end of the video, I'm going to share with you the number one trick that you can pull on YouTube to stop them showing content that you don't like, that nobody else ever does. The idea for this video came from a recent viewer, Daniel Bodan. I'm Budan. I can't pronounce your name. But he was asking about the gatekeepers of photography. And YouTube's algorithm somewhat fits into this kind of idea of being an almost a gatekeeper who's deciding the kind of images and the kind of content about photography that you and I are expected to enjoy. We'll loosely call it the algorithm, but the algorithm's job really is to serve up content to you that it thinks you will enjoy based on various assumptions that it makes about your viewing habits and what have you. And quite often, that is why it shows you the same types of videos again and again and again because other people have watched it and so on and so forth. And it creates this echo chamber effect, especially for new photographers who don't know specific things to search for when they're trying to learn about the greater aspects of photography. It can be very hard to find things. So I thought, what I'm going to do today is I'm going to give you a little insight into how, A, the algorithm works and how you can twist it and manipulate it to your own ends, but also give you some signposts of channels that I really enjoy, that I feel sort of overlap somewhat with the content that I create here on the photographic eye. So hopefully if you've not heard of them, you can go on and enjoy them later on. Consider this next part of the video a bit of a public service announcement. You know, they're helping out the wider community, helping out you discover more great content about photography. Way back in the midst of time, oh, it must be like 10 years ago or something like that now, I first discovered Ted Forbes's Art Photography Channel. And that was the very first channel that I came across that talked about photography in a way that I enjoyed, that he talked about photographers, he talked about composition. And, you know, the things that interested me rather than, you know, gear and lenses. And over the years, obviously, his content has evolved and changed. And, you know, he seems to be cycling back to more of the whys of photography rather than the hows. And if you have not heard of Ted Forbes, I would strongly recommend that you go and check out his video. For all of these channels, I'm going to link to them in the description box below. And I would say to you, if you do enjoy any of the channels that I link to, watch a couple of their videos. If you don't want to, you know, subscribe or like them, what have you. If you watch a few of their videos, then YouTube again will surface more and more of that. So Ted Forbes, the OG of YouTube photography channels that talk about the why of photography. So next up is a South African YouTuber, although he's based in London, a guy called Sean Tucker. Now, a lot of people have heard of Sean Tucker and a lot of people have made comparisons between us, which is really nice to see. But Sean, he does more, let's say, eyebrow kind of stuff. And that doesn't mean that his conversations about photography are inaccessible, but they are more thought provoking, if you'd like to sort of think about it that way. And I would certainly recommend that you look at his channel if you are of a kind of sort of a personality that really enjoys really thinking about photography, about the why. I mean, he goes into the why is a huge amount. And I would suggest that his channel is a great starting point to really think about what motivates us as photographers. So the number one way that you can start shaping how YouTube shows you content and what sort of content it suggests is to engage with content that you enjoy. So even if it's just hitting a like and subscribing to a channel or making a comment, YouTube takes as a sign that you enjoy that comment. Now, people have kind of wrapped that around and sort of gone, oh, well, like and subscribe to the channel, blah, blah, blah, blah, because it sort of helps them. But what I'm sort of suggesting here is that when you comment on a video like this, YouTube takes and goes, oh, you really like this kind of content. So it looks for similar types of content. So content that talks about sort of the why of photography and things like that. And it will start surfacing more and more of this kind of content to you, the more that you give it signals that you enjoy this. So from now on, if you see a piece of content that you like, you just hit like or maybe make a comment, say thanks for the video, or if you'd like to subscribe to that channel because the more you do that, then the more that you are kind of helping YouTube to make an informed decision about sort of content that you like watching. So next up is about photography. And this is a channel run by a guy called Martin who I've had the pleasure of speaking with a few times. I've also been interviewed for his channel. I first came across about photography when I was researching a video about Deon Arbus and he was talking about Deon Arbus as well. And the more I looked on his channel, he covered some really fantastic photographers whom I've not had a chance to look at yet here on the channel. So if you are interested in sort of street photography and the greatest street photography like Mary Ellen Mark and people like that, then I would highly recommend that you go and have a look at his channel and get engaged and see what sort of great wonders lie there for somebody who's new to street photography. T-Hopper was a channel that I initially came across. It must be sort of the middle of last year, so sort of middle of 2020 when I was sort of thinking about finally getting off my backside and starting work on the photographic eye. And I came across Tatiana, I think her name is, and his channel. And I really enjoyed the content there. It's fantastic because she is talking about photographers and she's giving us little biographies about interesting photographers whom a lot of mainstream people in photography have never heard of. And I think that's a really fantastic thing. And I was so pleased to see that there were other channels who were willing to create content that isn't necessarily going to get hundreds of thousands, 200,000 tons of views, but doing videos that are sort of about somebody they're passionate about. And certainly you get a lot from her channel. And I would highly recommend that if I interested in discovering other sort of more like hidden photographers, then yeah, certainly check out her channel. Up in the woolly north of Scotland, there is a guy called Alistair. And he runs expressive photography. And his channel was suggested to me recently during a live stream. And I am extremely grateful from whoever recommended it because I jumped on and I had a look and I've reached out to Alistair and we've had a bit of a chat. And he's a great guy. And I really enjoyed his approach to photography. He photographs landscape photography, but he also has this kind of more philosophical sort of bent to his videos. And it's so refreshing throughout certainly all of the channels that I've mentioned that it's not necessarily about the gear. It's not about the lenses or what they're doing stuff. It's about what motivates us as photographers. Why do we photograph? And that's kind of that common theme. And you probably no doubt already have picked it up. And it certainly comes through in this channel a lot as well. And so I would highly recommend, and I keep saying highly recommend, but I would highly recommend that you check out Alistair's videos. He's been going for a while and the content on there is a classic example. As are for a lot of these channels, you know, certainly some, you know, sort of Alistair's and Martin's and Tatiana's, that there's not huge amounts of views, but the content, the content itself is gold. And this is why this kind of content needs our help. It needs us to help go and say to YouTube, this is the content that we enjoy. This is the stuff that we like, right? Show us more of this, because if we show our appreciation for this kind of photography or for this kind of content, then it makes it more worthwhile for other people to create similar content. That's why we see such a proliferation of gear reviews and things of that nature, because that's what gets views. So people make, you know, content that gets views. They never make content very rarely, simply for the pure love of the subject that they're talking about. A classic example of content that seems to fall through the cracks of YouTube, because it doesn't really get any traction, is content from the Aputure Foundation. For those of you who don't know who the Aputure Foundation, very briefly they've been going for, oh, for some time, probably about, you know, just over a hundred years now or so, and they sort of support photography through the publication of books and what have you. And they do on their channel a lot of really great interviews with up-and-coming photographers, with established photographers. And yet, they get so few views. And it's why? Why does this kind of content not get surfaced? And again, it's because A, it never gets seen. And then when it does get seen, people like us just kind of go, that's really interesting, but we don't subscribe or we don't comment or we don't like or what have you. We just give it a view and then tutel off to the next funny cat video or what have you. So the next time you see content like that, even if you don't want to like and subscribe or feel that you want to make a comment, watch a couple of videos from that channel back to back. Because actually, out of all the suggestions that YouTube takes as you like this content, the biggest one, the biggest one by far and away, is the amount of time you spend watching that channel. It seems obvious. And that's why, you know, if you don't want to comment, watch some more videos and you will get that sort of content surfaced to you more often. You may have noticed through all of this, I haven't really talked about specific photographers and people who do channels about their photography. And the reason I've done this is because it can be a very subjective thing. Because if you've got, you know, like a landscape photographer or as of, you know, somebody who does wildlife or what have you, that it's too broad of a palette to start getting into those sort of things. However, I would suggest that these same rules apply for, you know, finding content that you like in those areas. You know, I know that certainly in these days, landscape photography seems to be the big thing. And there's a couple of big names within landscape photography. And if you enjoy that kind of content, then again, you know, like, subscribe, you know, comment on the things, watch some of their videos, these, all of these things are going to help you have a more rich and fulfilling and rewarding experience on YouTube because now you're starting to tell YouTube the things that you like. So that trick that I mentioned earlier, the one that is going to stop YouTube showing you the content that you don't like is if you go onto your home screen and there is a tiny little magic button that you can click that says, I am not interested in this content. Give it a click and see what happens. Nobody ever does this. Why not? It's such a good way of curating your own home page. Tell YouTube, actively tell YouTube, you don't want to see this sort of stuff and they will actually take it because believe it or not, YouTube wants you to stay on YouTube. So they are not interested in showing you content that you have actively said, I do not like to watch this. There are millions of channels here on YouTube. We only get to see just the tip of the iceberg. So if you know some great content about photography, please feel free to link it in the description box below. Now I'll just give you a little heads up about that. I have turned off or turned on comment URL blocking because of all the spam stuff. So I have to manually approve all the URLs that go in there. So if your comment doesn't show up straight away, that's why I haven't removed it or whatever, but it will just take a little bit of a time to go through. Anyway, thank you ever so much for watching again. And I am going to say, watch this video over here because this is going to give you a really good insight into why I started photographing in the first place.